MOSCOW (AP) – Moscow braced itself for more protests for the release of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is facing trial on Tuesday after two weekends of nationwide rallies and thousands of arrests in Russia’s greatest deluge of discontent in years.
Tens of thousands filled the streets of the vast country on Sunday, chanting slogans against President Vladimir Putin and demanding freedom for Navalny, who was jailed last month and spent years in prison. According to a human rights organization, more than 5,400 protesters were detained by the authorities.
Among those taken into custody for several hours was Navalny’s wife, Yulia, who was sentenced on Monday to pay a fine of about $ 265 for participating in an unauthorized rally.
While the state media denounced the demonstrations as minor, claiming to show the failure of the opposition, the Navalny team said the turnout showed “overwhelming nationwide support” for the Kremlin’s most fierce critic. His allies called on protesters on Tuesday to come to the Moscow courthouse.
“Without your help, we will not be able to resist the lawlessness of the authorities,” his politician’s team said in a social media post.
Massive protests engulfed dozens of Russian cities for the second weekend in a row, despite attempts by authorities to quell the unrest caused by the 44-year-old Navalny’s capture.
He was arrested on January 17 when he returned from Germany, where he recovered for five months from a nerve infection he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities reject the charge. He is facing jail time for alleged probation violations as a result of a money laundering conviction in 2014 that is widely considered to be politically motivated.
Last month, the Russian Prison Service filed a motion to replace his 3 1/2 years suspended prison sentence from the sentencing with one that he must serve. The attorney general’s office on Monday backed the motion, claiming that Navalny was guilty of “unlawful conduct” while on probation.
Following his arrest, Navalny’s team released a two-hour YouTube video claiming that a lavish Black Sea residence had been built for Putin. The video has been viewed more than 100 million times, further fueling Russians’ discontent during an economic downturn. The Kremlin says Putin has no connection to the residence, and the president himself addressed the allegations last week, saying that neither he nor his family members own the properties mentioned in the video.
The demonstrations after Navalny’s arrest seem to have upset the Kremlin. To try to quell the protests, authorities have jailed Navalny’s employees and activists across the country. His brother Oleg, ally Lyubov Sobol and three others were placed under house arrest for two months and are facing criminal charges for violating the coronavirus restrictions.
On Tuesday, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh was also put in prison for two months over the same charge. Yarmysh was ordered to serve a nine-day sentence last month for violating protest rules and was due to be released on Saturday, but was rearrested.
At least 40 criminal investigations have been opened in 18 Russian regions in connection with the protests, said Pavel Chikov, head of the human rights organization Agora.
Police cracked down on the protesters on Sunday and detained more than 5,400 of them, according to OVD-Info, a legal aid group that tracks arrests at protests. The group said this was the largest number in its nine-year history of record keeping in the Putin era.
According to OVD-Info, at least 51 protesters were beaten up by the police. Videos of the protests showed riot police beating people with batons and throwing them to the ground. The media reported that some police officers had used stun weapons on protesters.
When asked about the mass arrests, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the protests were “illegal” and accused that “there were a fairly large number of hooligans, provocateurs with more or less aggressive behavior towards them. from law enforcement officials. ”
“In response to provocations, the police act harshly and within the law,” said Peskov.
State media also highlighted ‘aggressive actions’ by protesters in their coverage, saying Sunday’s rallies attracted far fewer people than the previous one on January 23. Many reports underscored ‘polite’ actions by police officers, and state television channel Russia 1 even showed video statements of people thanking law enforcement officers in connection with the rallies.
Navalny’s capture and crackdown on the protests sparked international outrage, with Western officials calling for his release and condemning the arrests of protesters.
The German government pushed for the immediate release of the arrested protesters, as well as Navalny. It “condemns the use of force by Russian security forces and the once more disproportionate action against peacefully demonstrating civilians,” said government spokeswoman Martina Fietz.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted that Washington “condemns the continued use of harsh tactics by the Russian authorities against peaceful protesters and journalists for a second straight week.” He also urged the release of Navalny and those detained “for exercising their human rights”.
The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected Blinken’s call as “gross interference in Russia’s internal affairs” and accused Washington of destabilizing the situation by backing the protests.